The best rap line about each NBA star

Earlier this week I celebrated the current glut of good basketball and hip hop we’re experiencing by comparing each team's 2016-17 season to a rap album, and now we continue the party on a more granular but far-reaching level: player references in rap.

The following are 25 players past and present who receive a significant amount of love (or at least attention) in hip hop, and the finest bar that, to my knowledge, has been written about them.

Narrowing these down was a difficult task, and I’ve included honorable mentions for those where competition for strongest lyric was fierce. Because you can’t have just one Kobe reference.